The chief executive of the Australian arm of Adani has been linked to a mining pollution case in Africa, prompting renewed questions about the Indian company’s suitability to run this country’s largest proposed coalmine.

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A joint report by Environmental Justice Australia reveals Jeyakumar Janakaraj held senior roles at a miner that pleaded guilty to criminal charges over the poisoning of a river in Zambia before taking up his role heading Adani’s Australian operations.

Janakaraj was operations director at Koncola Copper Mines (KCM) in 2010 when the company was charged for polluting the Kafue river with toxic wastewater.

The company pleaded guilty and was fined 21,970,000 Zambian kwacha (about $A4,030).

It was also found to have wilfully failed to report the pollution of the river, which was a source of drinking water, fishing and irrigation for local communities.

More than 1,800 Zambians who allege KCM was responsible for pollution that led to illness and destruction of farmland from 2004, have now lodged a fresh claim against the company in the high court in London.

Janakaraj, who worked at KCM from 2008 to 2013, is named in the claim as one of the executives expected to know in detail about its mining operations and pollution control measures, according to an ABC report.

This was a pre-condition for gaining a state-issued environmental authority in Queensland, where Adani plans to build the Carmichael mine, a 40m tonne a year coal project in the Galilee Basin.

Wilkinson called on federal environment minister Greg Hunt and the director general of Queensland’s department of environment and heritage protection to “adequately scrutinise the environmental track record of the Adani Group and properly consider whether it is worth the risk to allow this enormous coalmine, which will impact our Great Barrier Reef, to proceed”.

Earthjustice’s US-based managing attorney Martin Wagner said Adani should “not be allowed to operate any mine in Australia if it and its executives cannot demonstrate a record of safe mining operations and compliance with the law”.

A spokesman for Hunt told the ABC that his department would “seek clarification” from Adani on the issues raised by the EJA report.

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An Adani spokesman said in a statement that Janakaraj had “wide-ranging experience that has contributed to his acute belief in proactive good environmental management”.

“This is based on his early experience in Australia, where that respect for stringent management was part of the culture, and because he has seen around the world both directly and indirectly how hard managing legacy issues is,” he said.

“That includes the need to assist in managing legacy issues in Africa. He is confident that he has always worked to improve practices and leave projects in better shape than he found them.”